In C-Suite circles there are always little quips about the key disciplines around the top table. Most are in jest but many are actually rooted in an unhelpful trend of not appreciating the scale of each others roles.

Since my career has been based in the Technology sphere I am naturally biased towards the common under-appreciation of the Technology leadership and value they provide.

That’s not to say that they are alone in being under-appreciated at the board level but there is a distinct modern trend of almost everyone thinking they are a technology leader.

In case you are wondering about the punchline to the joke, one answer is…

‘None, the Board all know how to use a smartphone so why would they need a CIO?’

Said with jest, this merely intimates the pervasive nature of technology in our everyday lives. It surrounds us, supports us, even nurtures our wellbeing. Unless you’re a survivalist in a nature-swept wilderness somewhere then you have to be competent, or at least familiar, with a multitude of technologies in our modern world.

We live in the ‘Technological Revolution’ and that means that everyone, to varying degrees, believes they are a technologist.

Now… of itself there is no harm in that because creativity and innovation are very often spawned from inquisitive minds that know a little but want to know a lot. The challenge lies in knowing when to put trust in those with more experience – those who have spent much of their life in the complex breadth and depths of the vast, enabling, foundation slab that is Technology.

Infact calling it a foundation slab belittles the absolute pervasiveness of Technology throughout an organisation’s structure and operation.

To the extent that cyber-attacks will often cripple, stunt or even kill a business tells the story about how technology is the nervous system of an organisation. The ‘people’ are often described as the life-blood, and may keep the body functioning, but without a nervous system you are in a coma.

Even small companies can incur tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds of remedial cost from a major cyber-attack. For larger corporates the cost can extend into several millions and that’s before the potential penalties that can be imposed from any data/privacy breaches.

Compliance, Governance & Security are not something one should leave to the inexperienced.

The point here is that the realm of the Technology remit is genuinely vast. It has a breadth that matches any other discipline at the Board but, arguably, has the most intricate web of deep responsibility of all.

From the foundational level of ‘Core IT’ with specialised remits of: desktop, network, server, identity, security, resilience, etc…
To the wider business-product facing arena of: data, systems, integrations, business intelligence, automation, etc.

An experienced CIO can direct and champion streamlined data structures & workflows with well-architected automation, integrations and application of emerging ML/AI capabilities. The organisational value and cost savings they derive will almost always eclipse less experienced efforts.

Perhaps of most value is the ability a seasoned CIO often brings in ‘connecting the dots’ in an organisation to release the latent synergies that others don’t even spot. They are very often pioneering catalysts of innovation through the ‘art of the technologically possible’. CIOs are regularly the executive spark behind new products capabilities, engagement routes to market and revenue streams. 

The scale is enormous and the experience required to direct/manage it well is no less essential than a CFO, for example.

Depending upon size of the organisation there are obvious debates about the justification for such roles in their own right. There are also natural semantics debates about the different names of roles: CIO, CTO, CPTO, CDO, IT Director…

The interesting part of all those debates is usually around the relative importance placed by a Board against forward progress versus sustainability & risk. A Board might put more focus on driving forward their new customer offerings or they might put more stock in protecting the privacy and data of their existing customer base.

Notionally, neither is right or wrong… but in the world of DPA/GDPR and general need for strong governance, and specifically security, there seems a push of the dial towards the need for a fully experienced Technology leader on the board.

This is before one even contemplates the value that a seasoned CIO can bring to the metaphoric table by way of change and transformation management. They tend to offer much more objective perspective than their C-Suite colleagues might feel comfortable admitting.

I’ve worked for and with many organisations where the Technology discipline was seen merely as the ‘geeks’ who provided the laptops, internet and printers. They were trusted with little more.

I’ve also seen organisations where the Technology leader was revered as the pioneering, beating heart of the company and the catalyst of future ambitions. A lot of the time it boils down to the culture in the organisation as much as the individual or their experience.

However, the underlying theme is that a strong CIO-type role on the Board of the company leads to a stronger company leadership team who truly appreciate that breadth and depth of the technology nervous system.

Some companies aren’t large enough to justify such a role but there is a growing market for ‘Fractional CIOs’ who provide that skill and experience on a part-time or NED basis. Other organisations have such a burden on their CIO that there may be a need to supplement with an additional trusted pair of hands on an advisory/support contract basis.

Whatever the nature of the role, it is a naïve approach to believe that skill and experience in Technology Leadership is not a highly valuable resource.

Back to my jovial starting point of this post…
Just because you know how to drive a car, does that mean you should believe you could run a Formula 1 team or manage a car production plant?
Just because you can change the fuse in a plug, does it mean you understand how to re-wire a house?

Perhaps the joke punchline should be:
Just the one but they will involve their Heads of Infrastructure, Systems, Data, Integration, Security, Automation, Compliance…… and ensure the bulb boldly illuminates the Board’s goals and ambitions.

Please do get in touch if any of this intrigues you.